People of the Sea(41)
Ahead, the inflated tapir. hide rested at the base of the fist-shaped boulder. “Are you ready, Cloud Girl?”
Cloud Girl made a soft sound.
Kestrel slowed her pace, examining the familiar layers of rock and earth along the eroded bluff for one final time, then knelt by the tapir hide. Last night she had blown into the un sewn foreleg to inflate it, twisted the leg closed and secured it with a length of wet sinew. Since that time, it had lost some air but not much.
“It’s going to be all right, Cloud Girl. Look. The hide held air all night long.”
She gazed out across the wide, violent water. Sunlight glittered from the surface, a stunning patchwork of blue and gold. From around her waist, Kestrel removed the pack that held her tools and the calf meat that she’d smoked the night before. Quickly, she pulled out the ulna and a long string of dried tendon. She dipped the tendon in the water until it became slippery. “The river is so wide this time of season that it will take us three hands of time to cross. Three hands of time. That’s all. Then we’ll build a fire and get warm again. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be right here.”
But her heart pounded as she untied the sinew on the foreleg. She put her mouth over the opening and slowly untwisted the leg so that she could blow more air into it, filling it full. Then she twisted the foreleg again and propped
her knee on it while she punched holes with the ulna and sewed the opening closed with the tendon.
Blood surged in her ears. She slowly let the twist go. No hissing came from the seam. To make certain it didn’t leak, Kestrel plunged the leg under the water and watched for bubbles. Only a few rose to the surface, and she knew that the bristly tapir hair held air pockets.
“It’s going to be all right,” she repeated tautly, more for herself than for Cloud Girl. But her eyes narrowed as she studied the bluff for a final time, searching the crest and down the trough that led to the river.
At the bottom of the trough, a cormorant hunched on the limb of a dead tree washed ashore in the storm. The master fisher had its black wings outspread, placidly drying them in the sun. A short distance away, two raccoons waddled along the base of the cliffs. A fish flopped in the big leader’s mouth. The smaller raccoon kept snatching at it, trying to take it away. When the leader jerked his nose up and broke into a frisky run, Kestrel’s mouth tightened.
“The animals see nothing to alarm them, yet I can’t even manage a deep breath.”
Hastily, she shoved her awl back into her pack, which she tied around Cloud Girl’s.rabbit-fur sack, high enough that it should stay above the water. Without waiting any longer, Kestrel took the inflated tapir hide and waded out into the river. Goose bumps popped out all over her legs. A single finger of time later, the icy chill began to gnaw at her flesh.
“You can stand it,” she assured herself. “By nightfall, you’ll be safe. Safe!”
She positioned the hide so that the cow’s legs stuck out on either side of her hips, to make for better balance. Being careful not to put too much strain on the stitches, Kestrel gripped the hide and pulled herself up until her breasts rested in the middle of the cow’s stomach. The hide sank halfway. Kestrel allowed herself to smile. Cloud Girl would be dry, and she herself would be submerged in the bitter water only from the waist down.
As she kicked her legs to propel the hide out into the current, she glanced back at the bluff. She saw no one, but a hollow ache constricted her chest—she felt as though cold, inhuman eyes watched her. Kestrel clamped her teeth to stifle the sudden terror that knotted her belly.
She kicked her feet harder.
Then the current caught them and whirled them out into the midst of the rushing river.
Eight
Spring Girl, exhibiting her usual capriciousness, had slapped the high peaks like a bolt of lightning, splitting winter’s dreary clouds and letting in a blinding flood of sunshine. It might snow again tomorrow, but for today, warmth suffused the world. On the distant Mammoth Mountains, glacier fields shimmered whitely against the snow-clotted gray background of the jagged rock that lined the ice-filled hollows and thrust toward the blue vastness of the sky. But here, days from the coast, the enduring wintergreens, fir and spruce, that whiskered the slopes had lost their capes of snow, and the cold, vast, silent body of the mountain had begun to groan and creak as it stretched in the warmth, awakening at last.
Horseweed inhaled deeply as he climbed the muddy path. The rich scents of water, pungent soil and conifer belied the discomfort of soaked moccasins chafing on his water softened feet. Sunset had taken hold of the land, enlivening the smells of melting snow and newborn grass. They filtered clear to his soul.